I went to a goodbye party for
Twigonometry today. We ate ice cream and wrote notes to stick in the twigs. There was a remarkably good showing, probably because of the ice cream. It was hot out.
I'm sad that we can't have a bonfire to destroy Twigonometry. Putting it through the woodchipper just doesn't seem like a fitting end -- plus, woodchips? Not nearly so pretty as fire. Of course, a bonfire on top of the dry grass in the Bald Spot this time of year would probably turn the whole campus into a pretty fire. If only we could wait until winter and burn it on top of the ice rink - or float the sculpture on top of the Lyman Lakes and hold a Viking funeral.
My sister crammed all her belongings into her trusty but tiny Toyota yesterday, and set out this morning to drive from Seattle to Ann Arbor. Her transmission died an hour away from home. Ouch. Moving across campus suddenly doesn't seem as bad anymore.
In other news, I finished the seventh season of Buffy today. Now that I've watched most of Buffy as well as Firefly and Serenity, I have a few things to say to their creator.
Dear Joss Whedon,
While I admire your willingness to kill off characters for important plot points or to enhance major themes of your series or movies, please stop killing off characters for no apparent reason, especially the characters that I've become extremely attached to. It was hard enough when (name omitted to minimize spoilers) died, but I could accept that. It was pointless, but the pointlessness of it made a point, and while it wasn't a good way to make an enjoyable movie, it made a good movie. (Name #2 also omitted)'s death, though, I just didn't get. It didn't seem to make much of a point. The only point it made could have been made equally well if you had killed (him or her) off in an earlier episode and brought (her or him) back to life, like you do with nearly every other character in this series.
The thing is, if you hadn't killed off (him or her) in the last episode, (she or he) would have lived forever. Fictional people don't have to die unless their creator kills them. We might know in some nebulous way that they do have to die someday even in their imaginary universe, but that fictional death never needs to impinge on our reality. We can continue to rewatch episodes or reread books and happily think about what might have happened to them after the book or series or movie ended. But when you kill them without leaving any possibility of bringing them back, we revisit your world and hang out with characters and can't escape the fact that we know that particular character will die, that we have seen their death. Hopefully that doesn't completely spoil it for us, but it doesn't make us happy. Or at least it doesn't make me happy. So make those deaths very, very, *very* meaningful, if you must have them.
Oh, (name omitted). Why did you have to die?